American Cinematographer - December 2004 - 75

musician's death, in June 2004. "He
started moving and never stopped.
He went from Seattle to Houston to
New York

City to Los Angeles; those

his homes. He toured almost

were

every chitlin circuit city in American,
and then, following his breakout hit
in 1959,
tour

'What'd I Say,' he started to

Europe, and then Asia. To do

a

credible story of his life was going to
be a logistical nightmare, because we
couldn't afford to shoot in but
town. But

all of

us

one

who worked

on

Ray were inspired by the music."
That included Polish director

of

photography Pawel Edelman,

PSC, who is best known Stateside for
his

Academy and ASC Award-nomi¬

nated work

on

The Pianist (see AC

June '03), and whose cinematogra¬

phy

several films by compatriot
Andrzej Wajda first caught
Hackford's eye. "I just love soul
music, and Ray Charles was one of
my favorites," says Edelman. "So I
was
extremely happy to be involved
with this project." Adds Hackford,
"We all grew up appreciating Ray
Charles. That's easy to do in the
on
director

United States, but in Poland, Pawel
had to sneak the records when he was
very young."

Edelman was

so

eager to

the film that he committed

shoot
to

it

months before the

production got
light. "I met Pawel in New

a
green
York in 2002, talked to him about

vision for the film, and gave
script," recalls Hackford.
"Unfortunately, budgetary restraints
kept me from making it when I
wanted, so I kept phoning him and emailing him and letting him know I
wasn't going to give up on it. We
didn't start production for almost a
year after our first meeting."
Ray finally started shooting in
and around New Orleans in spring
2003. "About 80 percent of the movie
my

clubs, theaters and other practical
locations, "there was no way we
could

possibly do justice to this story
just in New Orleans," says Hackford.
"So we decided to use period stock
footage of various cities [featured in
the story]: Chicago, New York,
Seattle, Atlanta, Paris, London and
Madrid."

The

footage,

which
comprises 8mm, 16mm reversal
stock and 35mm, is employed in
establishing shots for the major loca¬
tions in Ray, and offers a remarkable
full-color window into the past of
the chosen cities. But the varying
formats and quality of the footage
dictated several technical choices.

The first
dard

shoot in the stan¬

was to

1.85:1

aspect ratio, says
Edelman. "Then we asked for

permission to finish with a digital
intermediate [DI] so we could
match the older

footage with

our

material better."
That choice, in turn, helped
address Hackford and Edelman's

carefully planned visual scheme for
the movie. As the director explains,
Rays script contains "three levels of
reality." The primary level tells the
linear story of Charles' life and
career

from the

moment

he boards

Opposite: Ray
Charles (Jamie

Foxx) enjoys

an

enthusiastic

reception

as

his

star rises. This

page, above: As
the young Ray

(C.J. Sanders)
begins to lose his

sight, his mother
(Sharon Warren)
encourages him to
work hard to
overcome

his

handicap. Below:
Cinematographer
Pawel Edelman,
PSC lines up a

shot.

the bus in Florida in 1948 until 1965,
when he kicked his heroin habit; this

him the

BMSUantiuciauvhmdenrsoeansll.

ocurftesy

Phot s

was

shot in Louisiana, with the rest in

Los Angeles," says

Edelman, who had
Bayou State before
filming Ray. Although New Orleans
never

visited the

offered the

production

numerous
American

Cinematographer 71
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